Thread: So if you could play any role ...

Tristan! I love this role! Or Mr. Bruček in Janaček's opera.

Martin

Originally Posted by myaskovsky2002

No! He killed his daughter by accident... I wouldn't like that!

That's kind of the point - it's a true tragedy because the character has all the seeds of his own destruction at the beginning.

That said I can hardly bear to watch Rigoletto any longer these days - just too upsetting.

Originally Posted by NightHawk

Leperello

I'd sing Leporello too, just for the fun of doing the catalogue song. I already know it by heart.

Originally Posted by myaskovsky2002

Tristan! I love this role! Or Mr. Bruček in Janaček's opera.

Martin

Ah, the romantic hero!

Originally Posted by mamascarlatti

I'd sing Leporello too, just for the fun of doing the catalogue song. I already know it by heart.

Any excuse to give one of my favourite young singers a plug

Originally Posted by sospiro

Any excuse to give one of my favourite young singers a plug

Now, to me, the really strange thing about the Catalog Aria is how little reaction Leporello gets. Anna - it is Anna, right? - hears for the first time that this guy she's desperately in love with has been unfaithful to her oh, thousands of times, and has nothing to say. What? It's just STRANGE.

Don Juan (don Giovanni) was just in love with himself, psychoanalysis describe this as a kind of homosexuality. It makes sense. He was in love but never in love, just wanting to take advantage,sleeping with the woman was his major success. But he really didn't look at them, just to himself. The Don Juan phenomena is the same than Casanova, Don Juan in Spain (Tirso de Molina), Casanova in Italy.

El burlador de sevilla is the title of the original play. Performed for the first time in 1616.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tri...he_Stone_Guest

It was taken by Molière and performed in 1660.

Many other authors spoke about Don Juan, the Spanish womanizer. But I believe the first was Tirso de Molina, that I read at school when ai was 15 in old Spanish.

But Casanova really existed (1725-1798)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Casanova

Well, if you want to know, I am very curious, i think and often I am wrong, that all people are as curious as myself, I am wrong, people here don't read very much.

Tant pis!

Martin

Originally Posted by guythegreg

Now, to me, the really strange thing about the Catalog Aria is how little reaction Leporello gets. Anna - it is Anna, right? - hears for the first time that this guy she's desperately in love with has been unfaithful to her oh, thousands of times, and has nothing to say. What? It's just STRANGE.

Good point Greg. Maybe she's in shock?

Originally Posted by guythegreg

Now, to me, the really strange thing about the Catalog Aria is how little reaction Leporello gets. Anna - it is Anna, right? - hears for the first time that this guy she's desperately in love with has been unfaithful to her oh, thousands of times, and has nothing to say. What? It's just STRANGE.

Elvira. Anna is the one who was raped at the beginning and who is engaged to Don Ottavio.

Originally Posted by myaskovsky2002

Don Juan (don Giovanni) was just in love with himself, psychoanalysis describe this as a kind of homosexuality. It makes sense. He was in love but never in love, just wanting to take advantage,sleeping with the woman was his major success. But he really didn't look at them, just to himself. The Don Juan phenomena is the same than Casanova, Don Juan in Spain (Tirso de Molina), Casanova in Italy.

Then again, what doesn't psychoanaysis describe as a form of homosexuality ...

Originally Posted by Aksel

Elvira. Anna is the one who was raped at the beginning and who is engaged to Don Ottavio.



Then again, what doesn't psychoanaysis describe as a form of homosexuality ...

Ah, gotcha. You can tell I'm not a HUGE don G. fan!!

Believe it or not, there is a small opera company in London that staged a performance of Don Giovanni where this character was presented as gay -- and the roles of the three women were rewritten for male singers to fit in with the concept.

Originally Posted by MAuer

Believe it or not, there is a small opera company in London that staged a performance of Don Giovanni where this character was presented as gay -- and the roles of the three women were rewritten for male singers to fit in with the concept.

sounds like it could be interesting - did you go? was it good?

Originally Posted by guythegreg

sounds like it could be interesting - did you go? was it good?

No, just read about it in the latest issue of Opera Now. The reviewer was not impessed.

I'd love to be able to sing Rosina, flawlessly, like Maria Callas did...
And Norma, would come next! I love it, but I only learned Casta Diva!
Deh, it's only a dream!

Induces me to entertain my assertions (or delusions) of operatic understanding.

Okay, here goes:

Tannhäuser.

Some famous heldentenoren have taken a pass on this role. Clinton Forbis in our era. [I once heard him say that he couldn't imagine putting his voice through all the stress that it suffers in service to an unrewarding character.] In an earlier generation, Jon Vickers came to a similar conclusion, reportedly dismissing Heinrich as "a rounder."

But he's NOT "a rounder." I know what makes him tick.

Heaven help me- if you gave me a world-class heldentenor voice, blended in a little bit of "stage presence" [wouldn't take much] and added my understanding of the character, I think I could do something special.

It's possible that I'm being delusional. But I think not.